In today's digital world, electronic communication is fast becoming the go-to method. Though users have cellular telephones, short message service (SMS), or text messaging is more commonly used. Users can quickly communicate with others and keep a log of the communication. With the emergence of smartphones, tablets, hybrid devices (e.g., mini tablets), and other mobile devices—with the integration of touch interface technology onto computers—users are capable of providing inputs to those computing device through an additional input element: touchscreens. Touchscreen displays are now an industry standard on cellular telephones, tablets, laptops and even some desktop computers.
A touchscreen allows users to combine the functions of various traditional input elements, e.g., a traditional mouse and keyboard, into one. In order provide this functionality, the touchscreen often displays a virtual keyboard to users when keyed entries are required. The displayed keyboard is generated either automatically by an application or at the user's request. Because of the size of the device on which they are incorporated, displayed virtual keyboards often include input keys that are a fraction of the size of keys on traditional keyboards.
So, in order to provide the same functionality of a keyboard, numerous keyboard views are needed. The user can simply press a button on each keyboard view to display an alternate view. Most common virtual keyboards include numbers and symbols on alternate views, incorporating only the most commonly used symbols, e.g., period, question mark, etc., on the primary keyboard view. However, as devices decrease in size it becomes increasingly difficult for users to properly and quickly input text on the correspondingly smaller keyboards. In order to enter text a user views one keyboard and in order to enter numbers and symbols a user must switch to another keyboard view. Likewise, in keypad based mobile devices, users are required to press and hold or complete numerous presses to get to a particular number or symbol. Such a process is time consuming, which contradicts the common goal of most users composing the text message or email: to communicate as rapidly and efficiently as possible.
Therefore, the need exists for a system that overcomes the above problems, as well as one that provides additional benefits. Overall, the examples herein of some prior or related systems and their associated limitations are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of existing or prior systems will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon reading the following Detailed Description.